Natural death

Natural killer cells commute death sentence

Sphingolipid imbalance can take out an eye Y onamine et al. report that the relative amounts of two sphingolipids control the breakdown of light-sensing proteins and determine whether eye cells survive. Sphingolipids aren’t just building blocks of membranes. Some of the molecules, such as sphingosine 1 phosphate (S1P) and dihydrosphingosine 1 phosphate (DHS1P), take part in signaling pathways t...

Negotiating natural death in intensive care.

Recent empirical evidence of barriers to palliative care in acute hospital settings shows that dying patients may receive invasive medical treatments immediately before death, in spite of evidence of their poor prognosis being available to clinicians. The difficulties of ascertaining treatment preferences, predicting the trajectory of dying in critically ill people, and assessing the degree to ...

PATHOPHYSIOLOGY AND NATURAL HISTORY SUDDEN DEATH Circadian variation in the frequency of sudden cardiac death

To determine whether sudden cardiac death exhibits a circadian rhythm similar to that recently demonstrated for nonfatal myocardial infarction, we analyzed the time of day of sudden cardiac death as indicated by death certificates of 2203 individuals dying out of the hospital in Massachusetts in 1983. The data reveal a prominent circadian variation of sudden cardiac death, with a low incidence ...

Thoughts on technology and death: an appraisal of California's Natural Death Act.

Programmed death is favored by natural selection in spatial systems

Justin Werfel, Donald E. Ingber, and Yaneer Bar-Yam New England Complex Systems Institute, 238 Main Street, Suite 319, Cambridge, MA, 02142, USA Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA Harvard Medical School and Children’s Hospital, Boston, MA, 02115, USA and School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA...